Clovis phase spear points used in present-day Alberta.

Clovis phase spear points represent the oldest hunting technology in Alberta, and indeed all of North America. These fluted, jagged stone points would be attached to a bone or wooden shaft and used to hunt enormous prey such as mammoths and mastodons.Source: Historical Resources Management Branch, Archaeological Survey

Atlatl (spear-thrower) technology emerges in present-day Alberta.

Atlatls were used by early hunter’s to increase the velocity of their projectile weapons. Spears or darts thrown with an atlatl could deliver devastating wounds to an animal, allowing the hunter to kill the animal from a safe distance.Source: Courtesy of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Bow and arrow technology reaches present-day Alberta.

Bow and arrow technology in North America appears to have developed first in the Arctic before spreading south throughout the continent. The bow and arrow was ideally suited for use in the wide open spaces of the Great Plains, and was widely adopted across the region.Source: Courtesy of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

The ‘Horse Revolution’ begins in present-day Alberta.

Horses were brought to North America by Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century. From the Spanish colony of New Mexico, horses spread across North America, reaching present-day Alberta in the 1730s. The adoption of the horse had a significant impact on the hunting/transportation patterns of Plains First Nations peoples.Source: Royal Alberta Museum

Rocky Mountains National Park is established by the Canadian government.

One of the main attractions of the new park was the site’s natural hot springs. The luxurious Banff Springs Hotel, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1888, pumped water from the hot springs into its swimming pools and treatment rooms. Tourists flocked to the site to take advantage of the water’s supposed therapeutic healing powers.Source: Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, v263-na-3562

The Calgary Water Power Company opens Alberta’s first hydroelectric plant.

The company was owned by entrepreneur Peter Prince, who also ran the Eau Claire & Bow River Lumber Company. From 1894 to 1905, the company was the major electricity provider for the city of Calgary.Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-4477-44

The City of Edmonton purchases the Edmonton Electric Lighting Company.

The decision in favour of public ownership was made after repeated disruptions in service from the privately-owned utility. Edmonton was the first major urban centre in Canada to own its own electricity utility.Source: Glenbow Archives, NC-6-271

The Calgary Power Company is formed.

The founder of the company, Max Aitken, was initially drawn to the region by its vast hydroelectricity potential. The company would develop into Canada’s largest investor-owned utility. In 1981, the company changed its name to TransAlta Utilities Corporation, in order to better reflect its provincial reach.Source: Photo courtesy of TransAlta

Alberta’s First hydroelectric dam opens at Horseshoe Falls.

Owned and operated by Calgary Power, the Horseshoe Falls Dam was the first of two such facilities built on the Bow River system prior to the First World War. A second hydroelectric dam began operations at Kananaskis Falls in 1913.Source: Glenbow Archives NA-3544-28

The Ghost Hydroelectric Dam begins operations

This massive facility was the largest hydroelectric dam in Alberta at the time it was built. The Ghost Power Plant more than doubled the amount of electricity generated by Calgary Power, which was already the province’s main energy supplier.Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-5663-44

The first Rural Electrification Association (REA) in Alberta is established in Springbank.

Over the next two decades, a total of 416 REAs would be established across the province. These organizations would play a crucial role in the spread of electricity to rural Alberta.Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-4160-20

Voters of Alberta narrowly reject proposal for public ownership of electricity utilities.

The 1948 provincial election included a plebiscite concerning ownership of electricity utilities in Alberta. Rural areas largely voted in favour of public ownership, while urban voters (particularly in southern Alberta) supported a continuation of private ownership. In the end, the vote was extremely close, with public ownership defeated by a mere 151 votes.Source: Image courtesy of Peel’ Prairie Provinces, a digital initiative of the University of Alberta Libraries

Cowley Ridge Wind Farm begins operations near Pincher Creek.

Cowley Ridge was Canada’s first commercial wind farm. A total of fifty-two wind turbines were installed in 1993-94. In 2000, the project was expanded with the addition of fifteen new (and much more powerful) turbines.Source: Photo courtesy of TransAlta

Drake Landing Solar Community opens near Okotoks, Alberta.

Drake Landing is North American’s first fully integrated solar community. This award-winning initiative uses solar heating technology to provide the community with the majority of its space heating and hot water needs.Source: Wikimedia Commons/CA-BY-SA-3.0

The City of Edmonton announces the launch of the ‘waste-to-biofuels’ project.

The waste-to-biofuels project will convert garbage into biofuel by harvesting carbon from the waste material. The project includes an Advanced Energy Research Facility, which opened in 2012.Source: Photo Courtesy of Enerkem

Hydro Power in the Middle Ages: ca. 500 CE–1500 CE

Between 500 and 1500 CE, the use of hydro power exploded across much of Europe and Asia. The foundational waterwheel designs (horizontal, undershot, overshot) remained the same, but were modified, refined, and at times adapted for new environments. Written records for the Middle Ages are often fragmentary and incomplete, so it is difficult to fully detail the spread and extent of water power usage in this period. The records that do exist, however, paint an impressive picture. One of the most comprehensive sources available for the study of this period is the Domesday Book, an extremely thorough survey of land use and ownership launched by the Crown of England in the late eleventh century. The Domesday Book indicates that there were over 5,600 watermills in England in the 1080s, situated in over 3,000 different locations. Southern France and northern Italy were also regions where hydro power was used extensively. The Bazacle, a dam and mill complex on the River Garonne in southern France, was likely the largest dam in Europe (and possibly the world) at the time it was built.

Other evidence points to the growing importance of tide mills in this period—mills built along coastal areas, powered by undershot waterwheels that drew their energy from the rising and falling of the tides rather than from the steady flow of rivers. Archaeological excavations indicate that such mills were built along coastal Ireland as early as the seventh century, and became increasingly common on the shores of the British Isles and France over the next several hundred years. The use of hydro technology in the Middle Ages was not confined to Europe; indeed, the available evidence points to a flourishing of water-powered technology in other parts of the world as well. Dozens of archaeological sites, most particularly in present-day Iraq, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, point to the extensive use of water power throughout the Islamic world after the seventh century. Similarly, the use of water power grew in China in this period. By the late tenth century, the Chinese government owned and operated water mills to ensure the supply of flour to the imperial capital.

There is significant debate regarding the diffusion of water-powered technology in this period, and whether particular innovations originated in Europe or Asia. What is clear, however, was that water power in this period was harnessed for a wide range of industrial purposes. Though the most important function of water power remained the milling of grain, it was increasingly harnessed for a variety of industrial purposes as well—for example, sawing wood, processing food, forging metals or manufacturing textiles. This was made possible through the addition of cams and cranks, which converted the rotary motion of the

waterwheel into reciprocal vertical motion (such as a hammer moving up and down) or horizontal motion (such as a saw moving back and forth). Many of the technologies that made these applications possible have their roots in the Roman period—for example, waterwheels had been used to power sawmills during the late Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, however, these technologies were improved, refined, and applied on a much larger scale, allowing for an unprecedented ability to harness water power. In Europe, and particularly Great Britain, this growth of hydro power set the stage for the Industrial Revolution.